Afenifere, the pan-Yoruba socio-political organisation has told President Muhammadu Buhari what he needs to do to earn the forgiveness of Nigerians.
Recall that president Buhari on Friday, last week, at an occasion to mark his final outing as president during the Eid-el-Fitr celebration, before handing over power asked Nigerians to pardon him, especially those he may have hurt while discharging his duties.
The organisation said he could use what’s left of his days in office to effect dramatic changes in policies that are making life difficult for Nigerians.
Reacting, in a statement by the organisation’s National Publicity Secretary, Comrade Jare Ajayi, on Tuesday, Afenifere added that this is possible to do if the president really wants the uninspiring portrayal of his administration to change.
To earn Nigerians forgiveness, Ajayi advised Buhari to immediately pay eight months salaries of university dons, take decisive action that will permanently halt banditry, kidnapping and sundry terrorism activities in the country, allowing those who desire to import fuel to do so for the price of the commodity to come down to less than N100 per litre just as prices of other energies like electricity, gas, kerosene and diesel should come down to about the same N100 per measure instead of about N750 that a litre of diesel now costs.
To ensure that this is permanent, Ajayi advised that government can license Nigerians who are into modular refineries to start producing even with tax moratorium while serious efforts are made to bring the four refineries in the country back into production line.
Afenifere said efforts should also be made to ensure that internally displaced persons (IDPs) are resettled in their ancestral homes with adequate steps taken to ensure that they are no longer worried by bandits again forever.
It also listed the stranglehold on the economy, especially through unfriendly fiscal policies, be relaxed so that economic activities can quickly bounce back.
To Ajayi, these things are possible to be done successfully before May 29, 2023 “if President Buhari and his team really desire to do them”.
Afenifere also expressed serious concern on the upsurge in terrorism acts following the completion of the 2023 general elections.
It stated that the series of attacks on defenceless people and the subversion of economic activities in various parts of the country “give us a lot of concern especially as we move towards the handing over of power on May 29, 2023 by the grace of God.”
Observing that kidnapping and banditry that ebbed during the general elections in February and March, this year, resumed shortly after the conclusion of the elections in March, Ajayi called on the authorities to ensure that the situation is quickly brought under control.
Instances of kidnapping, killings and other forms of banditry were cited in Osun, Ekiti, Ondo, Ogun, Niger, Edo, Ebonyi, Nasarwa, Kaduna, Zamfara states and a host of others.
He regretted that apart from kidnapping people on highways, “bandits now even have the effrontery to go and abduct people from their homes as happened to one Adebukola in Ondo State, to a former deputy governor of Nasarawa State, Prof. Onje Gye-Wado, to the driver of the incumbent Nasarawa State deputy governor, to one Muhammadu Jibril in Ago Igbira, Osun State and to over 100 students of Federal Government College, Yauri, Kebbi State, who were abducted from their hostels – to mention a few.”
WhatsApp CTA
Ajayi recalled that the Minister of Interior, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola, while speaking in Katsina, this April, stated that the Federal Government will soon “be deploying electronic digital technology to ensure 24/7 inch by inch surveillance of the 4,500 kilometres borderline from the eastern part to the western part including the coastlines” of the country.
Afenifere spokesman then wondered why the government of President Muhammadu Buhari is just thinking of taking such a step when it’s about one month for it to go, adding that the fate of those in the internally displaced persons (IDPs) camps is still hanging in the balance.
While noting that the plea by President Buhari for those he might have hurt to pardon him, Ajayi said that it would have been much better if the president had listened to various advice and pleas being made to him over the years regarding the unfriendly, if not retrogressive, steps his administration had taken.
“The maxim has it that ‘to err is human, to forgive is divine.’ Without deceiving ourselves, the Nigerian government under the outgoing President Muhammadu Buhari certainly ‘hurt’ a lot of people (to use his own word). Some of them are even no longer alive. Some who are alive have wounds that can hardly ever heal.
“Both physical and psycho-social wounds. Because the Almighty created many humans to have large hearts, many of whom the president had hurt may forgive him. That is for those who are alive. But then, what about thousands who have died as a result of avoidable acts that can easily be traced to the government such as non-provision of security and welfare as clearly enshrined in the constitution?”